A new player went from Apprentice to Wizard King in ~4 days of gameplay based on Realm Karma. I understand that being invited as an ally was a key piece of this ascension. Either the XP method of social rank ascension is too expensive or the Realm Karma method is too cheap. (I suspect the latter.)

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One Theme to rule them all, One Theme to find them, One Theme to bring them all and in the Chaos bind them.NoWorries plays as Baldr, God of Wonder & Progress | Compete together with Baldr in the Order of Baldrlux

agreed. this game is held together by the social fabric, which is currently failing on several fronts. even simply bothering to post in this forum has become questionable for me. there's been a nice influx of new players thanks to the end of year push on steam, but there's only so far to go with that, without some proper leadership and interest from the devs.

gary wrote:Besides, the horse has already bolt too far to ever be tamed

Costs can be tweaked and/or earn rates/methods can be tweaked. Shouldn't be too much fuss.

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One Theme to rule them all, One Theme to find them, One Theme to bring them all and in the Chaos bind them.NoWorries plays as Baldr, God of Wonder & Progress | Compete together with Baldr in the Order of Baldrlux

The Karma values (per win) seem ok, it seems that the issue is just the fact that you can buy in to a level full stop (and perhaps the targets for those levels are low in some cases). I can see how the ability to buy a rank does make ascension up the first couple of grades quite easy.

I don't know what the answer is.. I know someone who put in a serious amount of work into making godhood and deserved it based purely on the sheer amount of XP/Karma/Gold gained.. not to mention hours played, matches won, realms defeated, successful ally/invade records etc (these things should all be factored in somehow I think).

I think when new players want to fast-track it to lord or king (or demigod to a slightly lesser extent) it might be partly because they want to get access to the realm creator as soon as possible (or do lord duty).

So it's kind of a catch 22, it's good when someone is keen to unlock the realm editor and start creating content but at the same time if they bought the rank instead of grinding for it (although buying a rank still requires some grind) then that creates the situation where a content creator can be relatively inexperienced at the game as a whole..

..this might not affect their ability to produce a decent realm though, you can't really go too far wrong and the moderators will guide them through obviously.. but I can see how it could be problematic when you have a system where some players put in the work and some buy up to the same level in a fraction of the time..

..Therefore, somehow XP/wizard level should perhaps be a bigger factor with regards to moving up ranks (and perhaps re-evaluate the buy-in targets or level requirement). This would allow for a prolonged lord duty period (where ascension to king is based more on your performance as a lord - both, you as a player and your AI lord), this would allow for a longer period of playing/learning realms and pvp in general.

1) Change the Flat out purchase only of a rank (ex. 5000 karma pts for god) to a system were you can exchange karma points in for exp points, and encourage a mixture of levelling up while generally playing the game (as you do now through exp gaining gameplay) as well the ability to purchase exp pts, with the karma points.

2)Depending on tier, you could add a bonus for participating in a particular mode.ex: Lord: Bonus points for invading, defending the realms King: Bonus points for your realms stuff.Demi God: Bonus points for allying

3)Balance the numbers to accommodate these added features.

I feel like that would create a more dynamic progression system....maybe it wouldn't? hehe

I think the exchange of karma for experience makes sense. I'm wondering if it could be pushed further, as well.

For Instance, why have the ability to forge new gear etc contingent upon a byproduct of dueling, which appears to be the fastest way to accrue crystals, more so than other gameplay? Why pass out gold for gameplay aimed at more experienced players (league medals etc) when there is no real use for gold? Seems like things could be simplified a bit into fewer elements of the economy. For instance, maybe just 1, experience points or whtvr. everything costs a certain amount of experience: gear, forging, leveling, etc. and a player's budgeting of his/her points ends up as a reflection of priorities (ie: spending points on new gear on 1 hand immediately slows down your leveling opportunities but in the longrun will likely speed it up due to more wins/experience).

Likely better minds than mine have already thought through some of this, but the main point being the economy and social fabric are linked and both need some tweaking. I'd happily trade my 100k in gold for a chance at leveling up sooner.

There needs to be more fluency between the various currencies or a simplification as I've described that essentially allows the player's experience to manifest in whatever forms of upgrade are deemed desirable.